Lookism

8.6 for now, if later chapters are still shit: go back to 7/10

I love the characters, they're so fun and interesting, but the plot fizzled out completely by Ch. 50 and then it started with episodic chapters. There's a continuity to them though, but it's like...lol, what is going on? And then I get distracted because "omg 😍 Vasco, hi!" (love him, my sweet noble idiot). And when Vasco isn't hooking me, Jae Yeol carrying the BL subtext does.

Other reviewers are correct. Lookism doesn't know what it's trying to say/tell, who it's about or why it's continuing, or even where it's going anymore.

They're finally getting around to the strange mystery of the body switching...I think. I hope.

One negative trend I've noticed from korean manwha is the lazy reusing and copy-pasting of drawings. This can range from reusing earlier panels/characters to just zooming in on different parts of an image.

Lookism, unfortunately, has to be the most blatant example of this. The amount of copy-pasting here is astonishing; entire chapters would be significantly comprised of just reused art. I read 80 chapters before I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't sign up for an art experiment in how to make a comic with as little drawing as possible.

As for the story, it focuses on south korea's capitalistic and shallow society where looks and appearances are everything. However, it's unclear what the author intends, as the comic is seemingly both critiquing or glorifying it.

I noticed a trend with mawha authors, if you have a successful manwha, you would either have two routes, first being let it end in the first 100 chapters or so. Or let it continue till the end of time. This manwha chose the latter option.

The beginning was great imo. Uowever as the story continues, it feels like the drama becomes more artificial. It is clear the author is seemingly running out of steam as the chapters go on, some chapters are absolute bangers and some aren't. Unlike the first 100 or so chapters which were consistent in the bangers.
The plot is present, but not the main focus, the main focus is mainly the character and his interactions wi5h the side characters. The plot on why he has this ability is put on the back burner (as far as I can remember)

Overall would I recommend this manwha
, yes, but not now.
This manwha is interesting and you should give it a read, there are clichés, but that's with any sort of medium.
I say not now because I do not know when the manwha will finish, the manwha chapters love putting people on cliffhangers which I personally hate. So I suggest that if you hate cliff hangers and waiting for the next chapter, wait till this manwha is done

dropped at (? chapter, the juvenile prison arc)

this could have been a story about a loser improving himself. getting inspired from other 'similar' 'loser' characters who have a passion for their art. Knowing that good people exist even amongst these supposed delinquents.

And yes, it definitely was that for the first couple of arcs.
Its even possible that his own height was a stylized representation of his insecure self and that if he did try he could become this idealized version of himself thats strong and charismatic.

But the author ruins it by sidelining his own main character.
who only gets nuggets of growth slowly drip fed to him before the scene cuts to a random irrelevant plot as the stakes of the story suddenly increase from this one guy improving himself to suddenly him joining or starting a gang to beat all other gangs that are all led by students and wannabe mafia heirs or whatever the hell.

The story becomes not about the protagonist at all as new characters keep popping up out of the gutter and you spend literally 40+ chapters exploring their generic cookie cutter sad background orphan number 213.

Also it gets really disgusting which you can guess from me dropping it at the juvenile prison arc. the author/artist really likes going into pointless depths on the bullying or the unsanitary toilets they have access to in prison.

My rating for the story is 6 in consideration for the excellent beginning which i'd give a basically 9 or 10 of 10 for its potential but the later arcs really are a disappointment which i'd give barely a 1 or 2 because its actively repulsive not just bland.

You could not pay me enough money for me to even want to continue reading this garbage.

Edit: read the "Flawed but One of a Kind
by MondSemmel" for a more positive ish take but still seems we have the same sentiment. I did miss mentioning the part that the story suddenly hard pivots into violence for no good reason. but it is absolutely true. And its not particularly like the violence is stylized. its usually all about strength rather than technique as would be the case with a more sports or MMA type manhwa. It was okay but definitely should not have been the focus of the whole story.
As MondSemmel said, "that’s (violence) not what made the story so special"

Lookism is a fascinating manhwa. In the first half of its long run so far (~400 chapters as of this review), it featured lots of short arcs and jumped between several genres. E.g. there’s a brief horror story, and one of my favorite arcs was the 4-chapter detective story Jacedaichi Case Files around chapter 215. Then in the second half, Lookism becomes more of a classic shounen-style pure fighting manga.

In terms of characters, the protagonist’s slow transformation over the course of the series is delightful. And so are the many transformations of side characters - both the redemption arcs, and the falls from grace. There are, however, eventually too many characters, so some of them eventually lose out on screentime. In particular, several important characters (Zoe, Crystal, Jay, and the protagonist’s mother) almost entirely disappeared in the second half.

As for the writing, the arcs are mostly very enjoyable, but the plot for a few of them could be trivialized if only the characters consistently called their friends before doing something dangerous. Similarly, while the protagonist has an amusingly bizarre secret, his precautions should absolutely not be sufficient to keep it.

Finally, the story eventually suffers from annoying & excessive censorship (of e.g. cigarettes, knives, or punched faces). That’s presumably not the fault of the author, but rather the result of some kind of censorship law, but it’s still extremely annoying.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Lookism so far, but I somewhat prefer the first half over the second. Hopefully the story will eventually make some room for other stuff than fighting - it’s not like Lookism is bad at depicting it, but that’s not what made the story so special.

this manhwa is the one who hook me to webtoon and i reallly really love this manhwa. the action, the plot, the story, the drawing/animation got better too. i'm in love with manhwa bc of lookism i feel like there is no other manhwa like this anymore !!